The new Doug Ford reverts to his old self

Premier Doug Ford has unleashed a torrent of personal, political and constitutional abuse the likes of which have never before been seen in this province, Martin Regg Cohn writes. (Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Notwithstanding the Charter of Rights.

So says Doug Ford, who will be the first Ontario premier to override the Charter’s freedom of expression protections. Ever.

In a devastating court ruling Monday, a judge disallowed Ford’s hasty attempt — proclaimed in the middle of a municipal election campaign — to slash Toronto city council in half.

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Enraged by that humiliating judicial setback, the premier unleashed a torrent of personal, political and constitutional abuse the likes of which have never before been seen in this province. In doing so, Ford has set a depressing precedent for future abuse — by lowering the bar for judicial discourse and constitutional overrides to the most mundane level of partisan politics.

On what vital issue is he pressing the constitution’s nuclear button — invoking the rarely used “notwithstanding clause” that allows politicians to overwrite a fundamental right?

What could be so important that he is disrupting a municipal election in midcampaign, disrespecting the judiciary as biased, denouncing Mayor John Tory as complicit, and dismissing city hall as dysfunctional?

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What could be so urgent that Ford is recalling all 124 MPPs from across the province for an emergency session of the legislature this week — trumping the Charter in ways that former Progressive Conservative premiers Ernie Eves, Mike Harris, Frank Miller and Bill Davis (who helped craft it) would never have attempted, let alone fathomed?

The answer (to repeat): His government abruptly decided to redraw Toronto’s electoral boundaries, halving the representation at city hall because Ford deems it dysfunctional — without warning, in the middle of the municipal election, long after candidates had already started campaigning and fundraising.

It’s an issue so supposedly critical that Ford completely forgot to mention it during his own provincial campaign — the one he claims as a mandate for constitutional carte blanche. An issue so esoteric, so down in the weeds, that — despite an extensive four-year public consultation by Toronto — it had barely penetrated the radar of most people in Canada’s biggest city.

But it’s an issue that long stuck in the craw of Ford, ever since his days as a blustering, blundering councillor trying to muscle in on the office of the mayor — his late brother Rob — while berating his fellow councillors and trying to cut them down to size. Ever since he was defeated by Tory for the mayoralty four years ago.

Why bother? Why raise the constitutional stakes so high for an issue that ranks so low with most people?

Because he can. Reincarnated as the provincial politician who won his party leadership by a hair, and then dislodged the unpopular Liberals from the premier’s chair, Ford has the power at Queen’s Park that he never had before to get his way in his old city hall haunts.

Payback. No “lefty” councillors to stand in his way. And no judge sitting on the bench to bar his way — not least Justice Edward Belobaba, who Ford wrongly claimed Monday was “appointed by Dalton McGuinty” (the former Liberal premier) — when in fact he was a federal government appointment.

For the next four years, Ford insisted Monday, he must have a clear runway to fix a so-called “dysfunctional” city hall, even if that means cascading constitutional chaos, emergency sessions of the legislature, flying MPPs in on short notice, hiring lawyers to lose more court cases — about 10 lawsuits at last count. Because that’s his definition of democracy — a place where the people rule, not judges.

“Democracy is going every four years to elect a government,” he lectured reporters Monday, “no matter whether it’s federally or provincially or municipally without worrying about your mandate being overturned.”

Municipally? Bad enough that Ford believes democracy is solely about elections — without regard to the judiciary and civic society that underpin the rule of law in between campaigns. What’s truly bizarre is that Ford included the municipal level in his lament about the lot of politicians, and yet he is acting so imperiously toward Toronto.

As Ford keeps raging and repeating, cities are the constitutional creation of the provinces — a legislative anachronism that gives licence to the premier’s diktats. No constitutional scholars, and certainly not Belobaba, dispute that the province has the power to legislate over cities, and that the cities have little recourse.

Unless provinces breach the Charter of Rights. Which is what Queen’s Park did when it acted not merely unilaterally but precipitously, not just unfairly but unconstitutionally.

Just because a city is the province’s creation does not mean it can act malignantly, any more than a parent can behave improperly toward their own child. Cities, like children, are not chattel.

Just because a province can rewrite the rules does not mean it can move the goalposts in the middle of the game, as the cliche goes — or that one can shift from grass to artificial turf at halftime. That was the judge’s admonition to the province, and the injunction in his ruling.

When he asked the province for evidence of any urgent need to meddle midcampaign, rather than undertaking more measured reforms after the vote, the silence from government lawyers was deafening: “Crickets,” the judge noted.

An override of the Charter rights was always meant to be an exceptional move. By invoking it now, on such a stunningly transient issue, Ford has diluted the currency of the constitution, opening the door to future overrides whenever his opponents get a rise out of him.

Indeed, the premier refused to rule it out if he loses yet more litigation. When asked if he’d use it again to bar the updated sex-ed curriculum, he wouldn’t be specific, but boasted, “I won’t be shy.”

For the next four years, Ford insists his mandate lets him use everything in his constitutional “tool box” to defy judges who dare to disallow his legislation. We have glimpsed the future under Ford, and it looks very much like the Ford of the past, four years ago, before he conscripted professional handlers to keep him tightly scripted during the provincial campaign.

Now, he has revealed (or reverted to) his true self — lashing out at municipal “lefties,” “special interests” in the courts, politicized judicial “appointees,” and hinting at dark conspiracies. What rulings will he overturn next as he puts judges in their place?

Today, ward boundaries. Tomorrow, sex education. How far will he go?

Just watch him.

Martin Regg Cohn is a columnist based in Toronto covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @reggcohn